The Competitive Advantage in the Middle of Your Organization

by Thomas H. Davenport

In Manager Redefined, Tom Davenport and Stephen Harding explains that managers must build human capital and create employee engagement by managing them almost not at all. The authors view supervisors and managers as centers of insight and influence, underappreciated in many organizations, but endowed nevertheless with the potential to make dramatic contributions to enterprise success. They urge companies to think of their managers as potential sources of competitive advantage.

and Other Unapologetic Rules for Game-Changing Entrepreneurs

by Andy Kessler

The era of easy money and easy jobs is officially over. Today, we're all entrepreneurs, and the tides of change threaten to capsize anyone who plays it safe. Taking risks is the name of the game — but how can you tell a smart bet from a stupid gamble? In this summary, Andy Kessler explains how the world's greatest entrepreneurs don't just start successful companies — they overturn entire industries, and he offers twelve surprising and controversial rules for these radical...

10 Bold Steps that Define Gutsy Leaders

by Robert J. Herbold

Why do managers at all levels sacrifice corporate success by shying away from making the tough decisions? This executive book summary of What's Holding You Back? explores exactly why managers often hesitate to confront difficult issues and reveals the ten core principles of confident leadership, outlining proven tactics by which managers can confront their inner wimp and highlight their inner courage.

A Proven System to Drive Breakthrough Creativity

by Josh Linkner

We live in an era when business cycles are measured in months, not years. The only way to sustain long term innovation and growth is through creativity — at all levels of an organization. This executive book summary of Disciplined Dreaming shows you how to create profitable new ideas, empower all your employees to be creative, and sustain your competitive advantage over the long term. Josh Linkner distills his years of experience into a 5-step process that will make creativity...

A Best Practice Guide to Choosing, Using and Getting Good Value

by Harold Lewis

In Consultants & Advisers, independent consultant Harold Lewis presents an accessible resource for individuals, businesses and organizations on how to get the best value from the consultants they hire. Throughout, Lewis answers many common questions about getting outside help, and illustrates his advice with examples of both good and bad practices. He also provides a thorough examination of everything involved, from picking consultants to writing contracts to solving problems. This

Managing for Conflict and Consensus

by Michael Roberto

In Why Great Leaders Don’t Take Yes for an Answer, Harvard Business School’s Michael Roberto shows company leaders how to stimulate honest, constructive dissent; use it to improve decisions; then align their entire organization behind those decisions. Drawing on extensive research, Roberto shows how to promote candor, leverage an organization’s wisdom, and build consensus that leads to effective action. He also presents examples from history while exploring how real organizations make r

Seven New Rules of Marketing to Today's Consumer

by Brian Johnson, Paul Nunes

In Mass Affluence, customer management and marketing strategy experts Paul Nunes and Brian Johnson explain that we are witnessing a pendulum swing in marketing from “one-to-one” customer strategies back to mass marketing. But this is mass marketing with a twist: The targeted customers are not the middle class of the post-World War II era. They are richer yet more cautious consumers — and they won’t respond to the strategies that worked with their middle-class predecessors. Based on exte

How Smart Companies Create Customer Value... and Profit from It

by Richard Gregory, Jeffrey Fox

In The Dollarization Discipline, marketing guru Jeffrey J. Fox and management consultant Richard C. Gregory describe how organizations can measure and explain the financial impact of noncost benefits, including increased market share, increased sales volume, and increased pricing power. The authors explain that “dollarization” should be a discipline that businesses apply across a broad set of sales, marketing and management activities, forcing organizations to be customer-focused and cu